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coal-black cave Winston saw another candle slowly come to life; then another and another. These unbearable sessions always progressed in the same manner. Winston would awaken to find himself cast in total darkness and suffering with intolerable misery. Then slowly the candles would begin to light one by one until the room was awash with light. When all the candles were ablaze Winston would once again see for himself what manor of torture had been put upon him as well as what type of heinous demon was assigned the responsibility of inflicting his pain.
    Once that had been revealed, the fire in his non-existent body would steadily grow to a level even more unbearable, if such a thing were possible, spurred on by the addition of this visually terrifying aspect of his torture. Eventually he would succumb to his pain and fall back into the blessed blackness. When his time in whatever particular room of torment was over he would find himself outside of the cave on what he thought of as the Path. Then he would once again be required to walk along the Path to the next available room, where, once inside, a new and even more horrifying form of torture awaited him. Oh yes, Winston had no doubt this was Hell.
    Â As more of the candles sprang to life the room became ablaze with their glow and in his immobile state, Winston could only see directly in front of him. Against the far wall of the cave was a large area with an irregularly-shaped reflective stone embedded inside. At first Winston could not see well, but after a few moments of blinking away his blurring tears he saw his own reflection—and then wished he hadn’t.  
    Earlier, Winston had felt some pain in his forehead, but had not known, nor could he imagine the cause, but now he suddenly understood the horrid truth. Winston could see in the reflective stone there was some type of rusted barbed wire wrapped in a circle around his head and its sharp spines had dug deep furrows into the flesh. Dried blood tracks covered his face. He looked strangely like pictures he had seen of Christ with his crown of thorns. But there was no Jesus Christ in this unholy place. Then he noticed something previously inconceivable happening above the encircling barbed crown.
    He had to strain to look more closely to make sure he was not imagining what he was seeing. He could not believe the site before him. The entire top of his skull had been removed and his brain sat completely exposed. As if that fact alone was not disturbing enough, he realized that dozens of thin rusted metal pins or rods of some sort were scattered about and imbedded deep into his unprotected brain. And although the horrifying sight repulsed him beyond his worst imaginings, strangely he could not feel any pain in his skull, other than the superficial pain he originally felt from the barbed wire. What he did feel however, was a fiery misery in his arms.
    Winston followed his gaze in the reflective stone down along his body and saw he had been placed in a large wooden-framed chair, curiously resembling the electric chairs used in the early days of Earth’s death penalty executions. The wood was thick and heavy and deliberately uncomfortable. Winston could tell by the pain he was starting to feel in his buttocks that something had likely been placed on the seat to increase his level of discomfort; they always used something that felt like broken glass, metal shards, razor wire, or hot coals, but for some blessed reason he was not quite able to feel it as intently as believed he should have. And that was fine with him because the pain he already felt in his arms was unbearable enough.
    As he continued to try to determine the level his unfortunate situation, Winston saw that he was naked, which also was not a surprise, as he had been naked since arriving in this horrible place so long ago. In fact, it seemed like everyone in Hell was naked. But there was no sexual reason for the nudity. The obvious purpose for the